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Posts Tagged ‘koan’

Is

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 7, 2021| 2 Comments »

The storehouse of treasures opens by itself. You can take them and use them any way you wish.
            —from Pacific Zen’s Miscellaneous Koan Collection


Even in deepest sorrow,
the storehouse of treasures
opens inside each moment—
I needn’t even knock on the door.
Nothing is asked of me.
I come to the storehouse
pockets empty, but feel
no need to fill my pockets.
All I want is to live in the opening.
All I want is to be used
by the treasure.
I want to be the treasure.

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After Reading from The Gateless Gate

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 7, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

I inadvertently topple the vase,

the water more pouring than dripping

from counter to floor,

and I think of Isan, the lowly cook

in the koan. As the story goes,

the Zen master fills a vase

with water, then asks his disciples,

“Who can tell me what this is

without naming it?”

The senior disciple says,

“No one can call it a wooden shoe.”

But Isan, he walks over

to the vase and kicks it

so that it falls over and the contents spill.

The master smiles.

Standing now, with the sponge

in my hand, I know I am too practical

to have done what Isan did.

I wouldn’t want to clean it up,

nor would I want anyone else

to have to clean up my mess.

I wonder, if, without having

knocked over my own vase,

I would have ever considered

my own answer to the master:

I would walk to the garden

and return with a small bouquet

of calendula, salvia, cosmos and thyme,

then arrange the cut flowers

in the water in the vase.

Perhaps they are gifts,

these mistakes—this knocking over

of things and cleaning them up—

how it makes the old lessons

come home. Isn’t it like me

to want to keep things beautiful and clean?

How I honor old Isan, his understanding

that the truth cannot be held.

I honor the spilling, the infinite spilling,

even now as I finish wiping up the spill,

then rearranging in my own small vase,

now refilled, the scattered calendula,

salvia, cosmos and thyme.

 

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